Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Editor's Note: I'm all for giving people with poor eyesight the opportunity to see optimally before anyone gets the chance to see better than optimally. That being said, I thing people should be allowed to see super-optimally eventually.

NYT - July 18, 2009, by Annie Eisenberg

A TINY glass telescope, the size of a pea, has been successfully implanted in the eyes of people with severely damaged retinas, helping them to read, watch television and better see familiar faces.

The new device is for people with an irreversible, advanced form of macular degeneration in which a blind spot develops in the central vision of both eyes.

In a brief, outpatient procedure, a corneal specialist implants the mini-telescope in one eye in place of its natural lens. The telescope magnifies images on the retina, extending them so they fall on healthy cells outside the damaged macula, said Allen W. Hill, chief executive of VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies in Saratoga, Calif., the implant’s maker.

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